The Triumph of Civic Virtue — a statue that has been called everything from “crumbling eyesore” to “sexist eyesore” — will not be returned to Queens any time soon, according to new borough president Melinda Katz. Katz told DNAinfo “there are a lot of ideas in the works” for what to do with the spot where the statue formerly sat, but that restoring it isn’t one of them. One such idea is to set up a monument to female leaders of the borough.
The statue, which was moved to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in 2012, depicts a big, strong, nearly-naked man standing on two beautiful naked ladies representing “vice” and “corruption.” Why? Because “when we wish to symbolize something tempting, we use the woman’s form,” sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies said in 1922 when he created the work. That explains everything.
(Photo: DazedEffect/Flickr)
